Hearing Loss, Tinnitis, & Acoustic Neuromas Flashcards
Types of Hearing loss
Conductive Hearing loss
Sensorineural Hearing loss
Mixed hearing loss
What is Conductive hearing loss?
Hearing loss due to dysfunction between the external auditory canal up to the middle ear ossicles.
(occurs from middle ear outward to the external auditory canal)
Common causes of Conductive Hearing loss
- cerumen impaction
- foreign body in EAC
- otis Externa
- TM perforation
- middle ear fluid
- otosclerosis
- cholesteatoma
What is a Cholesteatoma?
- benign tumor of squamous epithelium cells in the middle ear
- chronically draining ear, painless, unresponsive to antibiotics
Treatment for Cholesteatoma
Surgical removal
Location of Conductive hearing loss
EAC to the middle ear
Location of sensorineural hearing loss
from the inner ear to the brain
common causes of sensorineural hearing loss
- Most common is presbyacusis (aging)
- Chronic noise exposure
- Meniere’s Disease
- Ototoxicity
- Neoplasms
- Vascular disease
- Demyelinating disease
- Infections
- Trauma
What is Presbyacusis?
Age related hearing loss
Symmetrical
What do patients with presbyacusis lose?
Clarity (word discrimination), often don’t lose volume
What is Meniere’s Disease?
A form of vertigo associated with intermittent hearing loss
- common in 5th decade
- severe vertigo (2-4 hours), with unilateral hearing loss
Neoplasms that affect hearing loss
- acoustic Neuromas (vestibular schwannoma)
- meningioma
- brain tumors of auditory pathway
Hearing loss in patients with brain tumors
Always present with unilateral hearing loss
What is a meningioma?
benign tumor arising from the meninges
Vascular disease on hearing loss
Isolated labyrinthine infarction results in sudden hearing loss and vertigo
usually infarct location is in the anterior inferior cerebellar artery
Infections that can affect hearing loss
- meningitis
- HIV
What is mixed hearing loss?
Results when both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss occur
When two pathologic processes are occurring simultaneously
Can be from trauma, neoplasm
Formal hearing test
Pure tone audiometry
includes speech discrimination
tympanometry
Treating hearing loss
Hearing aids can help amplify sound but not discrimination
Send to audiologist
SHL-cochlear implant
What is tinnitus?
The perception of sound when there is no environmental sound
- buzzing, roaring, ringing
Where do Acoustic neuromas arise?
The vestibular portion of the auditory or VIII cranial nerve
-from schwann cells (part of the myelin sheath)
What is accurate name of a acoustic neuroma?
Vestibular Schwannoma
What type of hearing loss is acoustic neuroma?
Asymmetric sensorineural hearing loss (poor word discrimination)
Presentations of acoustic neuroma?
unilateral tinnitus
unilateral facial weakness of forehead and lower face
Treatment of acoustic neuroma
-Neurosurgical consult
posterior fossa resection of tumor at cerebellopontine angle
Auditory (VIII) CN is sacrificed
tumor is benign
